Saturday 10 April 2010

My Spirits Rise

My spirit has been lifted by

  • The weather
  • Success with paint
  • The survival of the Mercedes
  • The Velvet Underground

Finally it feels like we have left winter behind. The dry weather and longer days are just what my psyche needed.

I've been getting very frustrated and that's always a danger of that turning into anger and depression. Faithful readers will know that lots of stuff that I either need or want to do happen outdoors.

So what did I do outdoors this weekend?

Paint

Firstly I got 3 coats of paint on the rear quarters of the camper and it's looking neato.
The recipe has had a slight tweek


ProportionColour Ref.Colour Name
80RAL8011Brown
20RAL6001Green
5RAL2009Orange
1RAL9005Black
75White Spirit

The last entry about paint was obviously written the evening of the painting. The next day the last side to be painted was covered in tiny craters. I'm guessing that these were popped bubbles that then didn't flow flat.

Found some reference stuff that says 'paint too thick'.

So when I started the paint it was just thin enough.
Then it had thickened in the tray and on the roller by the time I'd got to the other side.

Or the paint had cooled after being inside.
So more White Spirit.
It works.
Just by chance Casper the junior ghost from over the road has sprayed his camper. For some reason his father Mister Ghost wanted to show me the results.
I had to be diplomatic.
My finish is better.
But I've taken a long while to get it, he painted the whole van in a
week. I think that considered he's done a good job.

Which is the point

  • I'm expending time and labour.
  • He's spending money.

On to the Merc.
Finally my insurers, who we shall call Equity Red Shite (ERS), have decided it's worth fixing after months of plain ineptitude. The details are far to boring to detail so here's the headlines.
Dec 17

  • Snow and ice make side street undriveable
  • We park to consider abandoning MB
  • Fool in some Pugeot childs car slides into MB front end.
Dec 22
  • Estimate of repairs from Charlotte Motors (£1K) emailed to ERS.
Dec 22 to now
  • An inabilty to hold on to documents,
  • understand common courtesy
  • and operate simple clerical process from ERS.

But at last they approve repairs, I think.
As they can't seem to answer correspondence I have to rely on an anonymous text from their engineers and an assurance from Charlotte Motors that they will invoice ERS.

Finally the Velvet Underground.
Sister Ray as loud as possible, on repeat.
I haven't listened to them recently but Radcliffe and Maconie have
The Chain which produced 'Pale Blue Eyes' and that is a thing of such beauty I had to listen to the third album.

Then the rest of them.

Loaded is playing at the moment


Sent from my iNterrossiter

1 comment:

Thrasher said...

This is all good news.

The weather has lifted my spirits too and I am getting out doing lots of cycling on my BRILL mountain bike. Also, I have been introduced to the delights of the allotment where my tasks are to water things and to kill the nasties with a systemic poison (which ain't as organic as I'd like but IS great fun).

Just finished reading Ian Fraser Kilmister's autobiography and realised that I missed my calling - I should have been in his band as most of his guitar players down through the years don't seem to have been able to take the pace.

Agree with your opinions on the VU - why don't they make bands like that any more.